"Insightful commentary on the tangible relics of the Third Reich . . . Tells the history of the Nazi regime from a fascinating new perspective" ( Military History Monthly).Hitler's Third Reich is covered in countless books and films: no conflict of the twentieth century has prompted such interest or such a body of literature. Here, two leading World War II historians offer a new way to look at the subject—through objects that come from this time and place,...

The memoir of a man who was a member of the Nazi Party—and ultimately became a martyr to the resistance.Ulrich von Hassell began working for the German Foreign Office in 1909, then aged twenty-eight. Two years later, he married Ilse von Tirpitz, the daughter of Grand Adm. Alfred von Tirpitz. After being wounded in the First Battle of the Marne, he worked as the admiral's advisor and private secretary.Hassell joined the Nazi Party in 1933, but strongly oppos...

J. R. D. 'Bob' Braham was Britain's most-decorated fighter pilot and one of the most successful fighter pilots of World War II. Joining the RAF in 1938 at the age of 18, he was posted to No. 29 Squadron at Debdon, where he learned to fly the Hawker Hurricane and Bristol Blenheim. By 1939, the squadron had become a specialised night fighting unit and Braham gained his first victory in August 1940. From that point on, he was constantly in action. Famed for his individual night-time intruder ...

Above the mud and misery of the trenches and the endless slugging matches of the First World War another contest was played out with all the military glamor, chivalric values and deadly outcome of a medieval, knightly tournament. This was the battle in the air between the first primitive aircraft and the intrepid aviators who flew them. This image of air war is brought nobly to light in the memoirs of Ernst Udet, the German ace of aces, whose impressive wartime record was second only to th...

A unique glimpse of the deadliest profession of the Second World War.In June 1941, Flight Sergeant Leslie Mann, a tail gunner in a British bomber, was shot down over Düsseldorf and taken into captivity. After the war, wanting to record the experiences of the RAF's 'Bomber Boys', he gave voice to his private thoughts and feelings in a short novella, uncovered only after his death.Visceral, shocking and unglamorous, this compelling story transmits as rarely be...

The first English translation of one German military pilot's experience before, during, and after World War II flying for the Third Reich.Johannes Kaufmann's career was an exciting one. He may have been an ordinary Luftwaffe pilot but he served during an extraordinary time with distinction. Serving for a decade through both peacetime and wartime, his memoir sheds light on the immense pressures of the job.In this never-before-seen translation of a rare accou...

"A brilliant first-hand account of the life of a fighter pilot" in World War II ( The Spectator).Spitfire Pilot was written in 1940 in the heat of battle, when the RAF stood alone against the might of Hitler's Third Reich. It is a tremendous personal account of one of the fiercest and most idealized air conflicts—the Battle of Britain—seen through the eyes of a pilot of the famous 609 Squadron, which shot down over one hundred planes in that epic ...

**“Richard Overy [is] one of the world’s finest military historians and probably the best historian of World War II writing in English today.” —Gen. Mark Milley, U.S. Army retired, Twentieth Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army magazineA leading historian of World War II sheds new light on the purposes and impact of the U.S. incendiary and atomic bombing of Japan’s cities in 1945.**With the development of the B-29 “Superfortress” in summer 1944, strategic bo...

**“Richard Overy [is] one of the world’s finest military historians and probably the best historian of World War II writing in English today.” —Gen. Mark Milley, U.S. Army retired, Twentieth Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army magazineThe 30th anniversary edition of the indispensable history that explains how Allied forces rallied for victory against Germany and Japan.**The Allied victory in 1945 has since come to seem inevitable, but it was not. In 1942, G...

**“Monumental… [A] vast and detailed study that is surely the finest single-volume history of World War II. Richard Overy has given us a powerful reminder of the horror of war and the threat posed by dictators with dreams of empire.” – The Wall Street JournalA thought-provoking and original reassessment of World War II, from Britain’s leading military historianA New York Times bestseller**Richard Overy sets out in Blood and Ruins ...

**An Economist Best Book of the Year“Richard Overy [is] one of the world’s finest military historians.… [His] book is timely for those interested in preventing war.” —Gen. Mark Milley, U.S. Army, retired, 20th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army magazineWhy has war been such a consistent presence throughout the human past? A leading historian explains, drawing on rich examples and keen insight.**Richard Overy is not the first scholar to tak...

Taught to fly by the Wright Brothers, appointed the first and only five-star general of the Air Force, and remembered as the man who won World War II’s air war, Henry Harley “Hap” Arnold is one of the most significant figures in American aviation history. Despite his legacy as an air pioneer, little has been written about him. In the thoroughly detailed Hap Arnold and the Evolution of American Airpower, reprinted to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the United States Air Force, bi...